Ken Griffin Buys Back Star Island Lot from Alex Rodriguez

Retired Yankee shortstop turned real estate investor Alex Rodriguez sold a waterfront lot on Miami Beach’s Star Island back to billionaire hedge funder Ken Griffin, The Real Deal has learned.

Rodriguez, chairman and CEO of Miami-based A-Rod Corp, sold the nearly 1-acre property at 14 Star Island Drive back to the Citadel founder and CEO for $45.5 million, according to sources. Rodriguez, who was first spotted on the island when he was engaged to Jennifer Lopez, planned to hire a world-renowned architect to design a 20,000-square-foot mansion on the lot.

Griffin had acquired the property in 2020 for $24 million, then sold the lot to Rodriguez a year ago for $18.5 million, records show. But that price alone is likely misleading. The property was part of a land swap between the two that included the adjacent estate at 13 Star Island Drive, sources said. Rodriguez and Lopez paid $32.5 million for that estate in 2020. Griffin now controls both.

The sales of those properties were brokered by Jill Hertzberg and Jill Eber of the Jills Zeder Group at Coldwell Banker; Rodriguez’s sister, Arlene Susy Dunand; and Ryan Mendell of Maxwelle Real Estate.

Griffin has been assembling land on Star Island, a man-made island just off of the MacArthur Causeway in Miami Beach, since 2020. He also collected residential properties in Palm Beach over the last decade-plus. On a piece of his Palm Beach assemblage, he is building a waterfront estate for his mother. His Citadel and Citadel Securities relocated from Chicago to Miami, where Griffin plans a waterfront supertall commercial tower in Brickell where both sister companies will be based.

The latest deal with Rodriguez gives Griffin nearly 6.5 acres of contiguous land on Star Island. That’s larger than billionaire Phillip and Patricia Frost’s estate at 21 Star Island Drive. And now just one other property owner stands between Griffin and the Frosts: Frayda Lindemann’s home at 15 Star Island Drive. (Lindemann is the widow of billionaire businessman George Lindemann.)

Griffin owns 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 Star Island Drive, which are on the west side of Star Island. He also paid about $107 million last year for Adrienne Arsht’s estate in Coconut Grove, where he proposed moving a historic structure off the property.

Other recent deals on Star Island include Dentek founder John Jansheski’s sale of his estate at 27 Star Island Drive for $57 million in September; and rapper Rick Ross’ purchase of 37 Star Island Drive for $35 million in August. Gloria and Emilio Estefan, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Lennar Corporation Executive Chairman and co-CEO Stuart Miller, billionaire LoanDepot founder and CEO Anthony Hsieh and plastic surgeon Leonard Hochstein, also known as the “Boob God,” all own homes on the gated island.

Rodriguez, who lives near Coral Gables, has invested in a handful of developments in South Florida. His Monument Capital Management, which is part of the A-Rod Corp umbrella of companies, recently raised more than $75 million for a fifth multifamily fund that’s expected to acquire $300 million in properties in the Sun Belt and Midwestern U.S.